


Blink and You'll Miss Her

by SegaBarrett



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ghosts, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 04:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21155351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: The trio finds themselves on the trail of a ghost.





	Blink and You'll Miss Her

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).

> Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, and I make no money from this.

“How many ghosts do you think live on Hogwarts grounds?” Hermione asked, leaning forward as she slammed her Monster Book of Monsters shut to an annoyed growl.

“More than there should be,” Ron declared grimly, “You can’t go anywhere without Peeves ruining your day, and that’s bad enough without running into Myrtle.”

Hermione cocked her head to the side.

“I’m not even going to ask how you ended up with a run-in with Myrtle recently,” she said, “But I think there may be a few ghosts we haven’t quite figured out yet.”

At that, Harry stepped into the Hall, looking frustrated and as if he had not slept in a few days. 

“Harry, what happened? You look as if you’ve seen a…”

“Don’t say it,” Harry muttered, looking down and kicking his foot, frustrated. “I caught what you were saying, and I don’t really want to hear about it right now.”

“Is Potions still keeping you up?” Ron inquired, “You were tossing and turning all night. I mean, it wasn’t that bad.”

“It wasn’t difficult at all,” Hermione spoke up, “If you actually bothered to study as opposed to… some of the other activities we have been partaking in.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“That was your idea, Hermione – and for that matter…”

“Didn’t you come in with something you wanted to tell us, anyway?” Ron asked, taking a moment to peek behind Hermione and steal a glimpse of her from the back. “You looked like you were right in the middle of some great thought before we cut you off.”

“Also, you look absolutely damp, Harry. You need to do something about that,” Hermione pointed out. “This relationship is not going to work if I constantly have to bewitch you both into proper hygiene.”

Ron curled up his nose.

“Girls.”

“I’ve been seeing a ghost,” Hermione said a moment later, slamming the book she was reading. “And I need your help to figure what this is all about. She wants something – but I don’t know what it is.”

“Is this about Moaning Myrtle again? Because she’s… a little bit crazy,” Harry chimed in. 

“No, it’s not Moaning Myrtle,” Hermione fired back, “This girl is a lot quieter… and blonde. Tall and… she doesn’t say much, just shows up behind me when I’m doing things and peeks in on me.”

“Peeks in on you? When you’re doing what?” Ron asked.

Harry grinned, and Hermione picked up a book and threw it at him. Considering the book she had chosen was the Monster Book of Monsters, Harry had to duck to avoid ending up with teeth in his shoulder. 

“I don’t really like being the voice of reason, but we’re never going to get to the bottom of this if we don’t actually establish what’s going on.”

“Clearly, you have a fan, Hermione,” Harry said, “But what does she want exactly?”

“Do ghosts always want something?” Ron inquired. “Or do they just… get bored?”

“I mean, from what I’ve read… I’m not really sure. I guess we’ll have to go back and investigate.”

Ron and Harry exchanged looks and sighed. 

“Do we really have a choice?” Ron asked. The look he got in response said it all.

***

“My parents sent an owl,” Hermione spoke up as they sat in the library. “They usually never do.”

“Is something wrong back home?” Ron asked, wondering if there were often dangers in the field of dentistry. It did seem dangerous to be inside people’s mouths if they didn’t want you to be, after all.

“I don’t know… They won’t tell me. It’s got to be something, right? Usually once I leave, they leave me to my own devices.”

“So you think that all of these are connected?” Harry asked. “Where do we even start?”

“Where we always start,” Hermione said, “In the library.”

***

They had found their way, yet again, into the Restricted section, not even bothering to try looking through the regular books this time. 

“All right,” Ron mused, “Where do we start? Or do we just want to pick up some books that are going to scream at us?”

“What does a ghost have to do with Hermione’s parents?” Harry asked aloud. “Some kind of common thread… maybe…”

“Or maybe none of it has anything to do with anything,” Ron grumbled. “We need to take a break.” He put a book back on the shelf before it could start yelling at him. “Let’s go back to Gryffindor dorm and sleep on it.”

Harry gave him an awkward smile.

“I think I know what ‘sleep on it’ means for you, and I’m worried that we’re not ever going to get to the root of this if we get… uh… distracted… by certain things.”

“But I think we’ll all be much happier,” Hermione chipped in.

Harry sighed.

“Let’s take… a half an hour to focus.”

“An hour,” Hermione argued, “And I have a better idea than going back to the dorms. In fact… I’ve been thinking about this for a little while, actually.”

The boys both exchanged looks. When, exactly, had Hermione changed from the gawky 11-year-old into a teenager, into someone they both couldn’t stop watching whenever she walked by? When had they both begun to hung on her every word in a way that went beyond the fact that she, of the three of them, seemed to be the only one who always knew what she was talking about? 

“Follow me,” she said a moment later, and of course they did, following her through the halls until they found themselves at a familiar door, bolted shut, opening at Hermione’s touch.

They couldn’t hear quite what they said, but they were more than surprised when they walked in to find the place covered in rose petals and smelling something that seemed slick and slimy, if that could be a smell.

“Hermione, what the bloody hell did you turn the Room of Requirement into?” Ron inquired.

“What we require,” she shot back. 

They looked around and saw that the place was entirely covered in rose petals, and smelling like butterbear. 

“It’s like a sex room,” Harry said, picking up a cherry from a shelf and popping it in his mouth. 

The room seemed as if it began to shake suddenly, and the three all looked at each other.

“Okay, Hermione,” Ron said, “I think this got a little weirder than we were planning on.”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” Hermione agreed. They made a run for it.

***

“Did you hear that?” Hermione asked as they began walking back to the dorms. “I could have sworn there as something…”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Ron replied, but just as he did they all heard it, a kind of ethereal wail.

“Help me,” the voice whispered, and in tandem they whirled around to see where it had come from. The voice, or whoever had owned it, was already gone.

“Was that the ghost that you’ve been getting stalked by, Hermione?” Harry asked. “I heard her – I mean, I felt her. But I didn’t see her.”

“How did you even know she was a ‘her’?” Ron asked, “That was so fast I have no idea what happened.”

“You can tell a girl ghost from a boy ghost, something about the aura,” Hermione said with a shrug, “And we need to figure out where she went, anyway, and if there’s something that she’s trying to tell us.”

“As long as we aren’t following any spiders this time,” Ron said.

***

“So this was Cassidy Brener’s old room in Ravenclaw,” Hermione explained. “She died seventeen years ago, apparently.”

“How did you even find that out this fast?” Harry asked, flabbergasted.

It hadn’t taken Polyjuice Potion to get into Ravenclaw; Cho Chang had let them in when they’d explained the situation.

“And she’s stayed here ever since, then?” Ron cut in before Hermione could explain exactly what she had done to find this out. “That seems to be the important thing. Not a whole discussion of your research, Hermione, though I’m sure it’s really exciting and everything.”

Hermione didn’t answer, not at first – instead she looked around, turning her head ever so slightly.

“Cassidy?” she called. “Are you there?”

“How did she die?” Ron asked. “How did she get caught… in between, anyway? I don’t remember hearing about her.”

“I mean, people do tend to die here more often than they do in Muggle schools,” Harry agreed.

Suddenly, they heard an unearthly wail coming from above them. They each looked up in tandem but, all over again, they could only see the briefest flash of light and then, nothing.

“For a spirit who wants to be seen, Cassidy isn’t making it easy, is she?” Ron pointed out.

“Cassidy?” Hermione called up. “Can you come talk to us? Clearly you want something, but you’re not letting us know. I just… I just want to know what it is. We just want to help, okay?”

There was a long pause, first. 

Then: “You’re Hermione Granger, aren’t you? And Ron and Harry. I heard that you three are always trying to save the day. Is that true?”

They still couldn’t see her, only hear the voice echoing off the dorm walls and soaring down to meet their ears. She sounded reluctant.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Hermione replied, “But we try to help people and… well, maybe we always end up in the middle of it, one way or the other. Is there… some way that we can help you?”

There was a slow sound of mumbling, then, “I guess I’m just pretty lonely up here.”

“I mean, there are plenty of other ghosts at Hogwarts. Don’t you guys have like, mixers or something?” Ron blurted. Hermione flashed a look at him, and he immediately shut up.

“I know what it’s like to be here and not know anyone. That was how I felt when I first started here. What happened to all of your friends in your House?”

“I didn’t have any.” Cassidy slowly came into view, a girl with dark skin and sad, brown eyes, fading into the wall. “I just kept to myself. And I still did, until… until now.” 

“Sounds like Moaning Myrtle,” Harry said, and Hermione was about to flash him an angry look, too, before she paused.

“You know, that’s a thought,” she mused. “Have you met Moaning Myrtle?”

“Who’s that?”

“This girl that haunts the girl’s room,” Harry said, “She’s super…”

Hermione kicked him.

“Super… nice. I think you would both really get along.”

“…Can you introduce me? I don’t really do well in crowds.”

They hadn’t known that it was possible for a ghost to blush. Not until then.

***

“…That went better than expected,” Ron said later, laying back in the common room. No one else was around other than the three of them, all out on a trip to Hogsmeade they had been too tired to opt into.

“Other than the fact that I don’t think I ever want to go into that bathroom again,” Hermione replied, “I think I’ll just wait until I get back here from now on. They seemed to hit it off though, didn’t they? I mean… I don’t know what I would do without the two of you around. I would have been heartbroken if we hadn’t all run into each other.”

“And fought a troll together,” Ron reminded her. “What did your parents end up needing, anyway? They didn’t seem to have anything to do with Cassidy being sad and not fitting in.”

“You won’t believe it,” Hermione chuckled. “Gnome infestation in their backyard. They wanted to know if I could do anything about it. I tried to give them some pointers, but I think it all went over their heads.” Ron leaned in and placed his head on Hermione’s shoulder as Harry did the same on the other side. 

“Maybe we can get a moment of peace after this,” Harry mumbled.

“A moment… that’ll probably be it,” said Ron.


End file.
